Page 15 of Countdown to Murder (A Paranormal Halloween #3)

Mira

Drake’s supply stock was in the back of the media room, so I chose two camo capes while Panda questioned the men manning the control room.

I marked what I was taking, rolled them up tight, and slid them into a side pocket of my tactical pants.

Panda and I were both dressed in all black, with our guns worn outside our clothes instead of inside, since we didn’t intend to leave the property.

We spent an hour talking to Jones and then all seven of his men.

By then, the other seven were starting to show up in the kitchen, and we spent twenty minutes talking to them.

Finally, we made a wide lap around the mansion, hiked our way twenty-five yards up the mountain, and I climbed a nice, straight tree with branches dense enough I could go up without having to scale the main trunk.

I went at least twenty yards up, pulled the capes from my pocket, and dropped one down to him.

“You know he’ll see us even with these on.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “but it’ll take him a little longer, and if he doesn’t think to look for people in the woods, he might miss us.”

We could speak in a conversational voice and hear each other.

Both snakes and lions have better-than-human hearing.

Snakes also pick up ground vibrations. I couldn’t when standing, but if I was lying prone or supine, I could.

I believe my skull is acting as the drum, since resting my head on my arm severely dampens the effect.

It’s possible my chest cavity does as well, but doesn’t pick up as much.

This meant if I leaned my head against the tree trunk, I felt the vibrations from it. Panda was sitting, leaned against it, and I felt his heartbeat. It felt so personal, almost as if I had my head on his chest, but I didn’t move away. I could watch the sky and feel his heartbeat at the same time.

“Have you ever fallen from a tree?” Panda asked.

“I’ve been pushed out of one in a fight. Never fallen without help, though.”

“How high?”

“Higher than I am now.”

“Injuries?”

“Broken bones. I immediately shifted, so no biggie. I was thrown off a fourteen-story balcony once. Landed in the parking lot with major head injuries. Unconscious. My snake has been conditioned to want to come out when other shapeshifters change around us. They put me in the van, and two wolves shifted beside me. The snake shifted, and I was okay.”

“Yeah, that was in my information packet about you. Handy. I assume the vampires somehow conditioned the snake to it?”

“I assume the same. I don’t have to change — if I’m conscious, I can stop it, but if I’m sleeping or knocked out, the snake will take over.

” I looked around. “In a tree like this, there are branches for me to grab on the way down. I can slow myself enough to land on my feet with no damage to my legs or torso. My hands might be a little bloody, but it’s just skin, so I’m still mostly functional. ”

“How old were you when you started climbing trees?”

“I don’t know. Young. I did it before I had permission, and once my handlers saw the aptitude, they trained me for it.

I had some gymnastics training as well, to help me learn how to manage myself on a series of horizontal bars.

I’ve never been afraid of heights. King cobras are adept at climbing trees.

I don’t know if the aptitude stems from that, or if it’s just who I am. ”

“You’ve never been around other king cobras?”

“No. What about you? Lions are social, right? Are you in a Pride?”

I didn’t want to answer the question, but she’d been open with me, and I’d already learned that withholding personal information from her wouldn’t go well for our partnership.

“I’m both in a Pride and outside of it. I suppose you could say I act as security for the Amakhosi’s personal Pride.

He trusts me around the women, knowing I won’t act inappropriately with them.

I’ll never contest his leadership because I don’t want to lead, and I’d never want my own harem of lionesses.

I’m outside the hierarchical structure, and yet part of the family. It works for me.”

“You didn’t want to tell me that.”

“No, but you’re being open and honest, so I owed it to you. Most of the supernatural community wonders why I’m allowed to stay. It’s none of their business.”

“But it’s mine?”

“Not really, but I appreciate your answers, so I reciprocated. You’ve told me some pretty personal things.”

“Why wouldn’t you want your own Pride? You make it sound like having your own harem would be a bad thing.”

“I know lions aren’t supposed to be monogamous, but I’ve always been kind of a one-man-one-woman kind of guy. It isn’t like I’ve had many relationships, but when I do, I can’t imagine trying to manage more than one woman at a time.”

We were still talking an hour later, our voices going lower and lower as the dark settled around us.

The mansion was brightly lit, but we were in the shadows of the forest. I had my focus on the sky above the center of the roof, my peripheral vision taking the sky all around it while I trusted Panda to watch the ground and back of the mansion.

A blur caught my attention, coming from the right.

My .308 AR was resting on a tree limb, so I had it to my shoulder, aimed, and fired in less than a second.

The vampire dropped down below the level of the mansion, and I slid the AR to my back and dropped to the ground as quickly as I could without tearing my hands up too badly — I needed to keep them as blood free as possible if I was going to take this asshole out.

I hit the ground running and saw him floating outside one of the vacant second-floor rooms. He was hit, but not in the heart, and there wasn’t enough silver in the bullet to slow him down unless I hit his heart.

My knives had a lot more silver content, and I wouldn’t have to worry about firing towards the house.

I ran at him, arched my hand down and let my wrist do an almost shape-shift so the bone was bendable, grabbed a throwing knife, hardened my wrist again, and threw the knife without slowing.

It hit his chest but he grabbed it and threw it back at me the instant it went in.

It went in exactly where his heart should be, but he pulled it out so quickly, I wasn’t sure it’d gone deep enough to do any damage. The fucker was fast.

So fast, I wasn’t certain I was going to manage to get out of the way before the returned knife hit me.

And then something slammed into my side and I was on the ground with a furious lion on top of me. He was in human form, but the lion was looking out his eyes.

I sent my senses out, but the vampire was gone. My gaze locked with Panda’s, staring down at me from four inches away. His weight was on me and he was heavy, so I kept my muscles tensed to protect my bones.

“You’re angry?” I asked.

“He tried to kill you!”

“Of course he did. I tried to kill him first. I’m certain it wasn’t personal.”

He grabbed me under the arms and lifted me as he stood. I was more than capable of standing, but he kept his hands on me as if I needed help. Part of me wanted to shake him off, part of me wanted to lean into him.

Three of Jones’ team came towards us, so I stepped back and away from him.

“Thanks for the tackle. The fucker was faster than I expected.”

“What the hell did you do with your arm?”

I shrugged. “I’m flexible.”

“No shit.”

“I prefer to keep it under wraps.”

He stared at me a second, and nodded. “I’ll make sure the video is marked appropriately.”

“Thank you.”

Clearly, Panda has some abilities he prefers not to let people know about as well — an ace in the hole, so to speak, because he immediately understood without having to ask.

I engaged my mic. “Target is an old one. The silver bullet near or through the heart did little to slow him. He was fast enough to remove the silver throwing knife from his chest before it was completely implanted. Only a handful of vampires are that fast. We have a much smaller population to search. Male. Caucasian. Thin. Black hair pulled into a ponytail. Dark eyes. He could use a good eyebrow waxing and trimming. I can sketch the nose and chin line, possibly eye shape. Most everything else was in too much shadow to give you details.”

Panda engaged his mic, his gaze boring into me while he talked to control.

“Mira got more details than me. I concur with the hair color, ponytail, rail-thin body and hands. Long fingers. Also, with the fact he has faster reflexes than any vampire I’ve observed.

He flew in. He wore lace-on dress shoes, black dress pants, black dress shirt. No tie. No jacket. Looked expensive.”

“Copy that,” the control room answered. “I’m sending to home base for a deep search. Camera images are all blurred.”

No one expected a good camera image. Vampires can vibrate at an odd frequency, so a camera can’t focus on them.

Everyone was already spread back out, watching the sky and all around us, manning somewhere close to our original posts.

In all likelihood, the vampire would need to feed before he made another attempt, but we weren’t taking that for granted.

He hadn’t brushed against my mind, which meant he’d probably read the client’s mind as he neared and intended to get into the window without being seen.

I’d slowed him down so we got a decent look at him when he would’ve been able to raise the window and go in while operating too fast for human eyes to see him.

Panda pulled an energy bar from his pocket, opened it while his eyes scanned the area, and then ate it in three bites. I had two protein bars, but I didn’t need energy. I opened my water bottle and downed half of it, though.

“I’m going to sketch him while it’s fresh,” I told Panda. “Here or inside?”

“Here. I’ve got your back.”

I didn’t doubt it for a second. I sat on a patio chair and opened the sketch program on my phone.

I pulled a stylus from my pocket and sketched his face first, sent it to control, and then I did a full-body sketch and sent it as well, with a note that I’d add more detail when I could work with my art pencils.

Panda’s phone dinged, and he said, “Wow. You’re talented. Let’s walk you inside and let you do it with your pencils. I’d like the client to see the best possible sketch you can draw of him.”